


Staying

by crossingwinter



Series: The Joy is in the Getting [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Humor, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 15:06:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the months before her final year at Hogwarts, and Ginny wishes desperately that Harry would come back to school with her.</p><p>But he's staying behind.  And so they must find ways to spend time together before the summer ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staying

She had hoped that Harry would come back.

To school, that is. 

He had come back to her right quick after he had finished off Voldemort.  Around midnight she had awoken to a knock on the door to her dormitory.  It had taken her a moment to remember fully everything that had happened—Fred, fighting Bellatrix, Harry.  Mostly Harry, the quiet confidence he had exuded as he had stood face to face with Lord Voldemort in the dawn light of the Great Hall, exhaustedly triumphant. 

When she opened the door, Harry had been standing on the landing in the clothes he had fought (and clearly slept) in.  There were still traces of blood and dirt on him, but she hadn’t cared.  (Though she had wondered how he had gotten up the girls’ staircase …)

Before he had even opened his mouth, she had leaned in and kissed him.  She had pulled him in by the front of his shirt and she had forgotten her rage that her fellow Gryffindor sixth years had not stayed to fight.  His hands couldn’t decide if they wanted to fist in her hair or hold her firmly to his hips, and they had spent hours snogging undisturbed, and Ginny felt giddy for the first time in over a year.

No, he had definitely come back to her.

He wasn’t coming back to Hogwarts with her for her seventh year.

She guessed as much when her Hogwarts letter arrived for her at the Burrow.  There was a note in it from Professor McGonagall, stating that she had been made Quidditch Captain for Gryffindor, barring Harry’s return.  When she mentioned it to him over lunch at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, where he, Ron, and Hermione had taken up residence despite Mrs. Weasley’s protests, Harry’s head jerked up from the hamburger that he was eating.

“What does she mean, barring my return?”

“I suppose she means that if you want to actually finish your education, you’re welcome to stay Quidditch Captain,” Ginny said as neutrally as possible.

Unfortunately, Harry’s face was unreadable as he began to chew slowly.

“I’m going back, Harry.  It seems like a good idea, you know, finishing school,” said Hermione, “You and Ron really should consider it.”

“Are you mental?” intoned Ron with his mouth full.  “We’ve been through this before.  Why on earth would I go back to school when I don’t have to?  Kingsley’s already said that Harry and I can start Auror training if we want.  And I promised George I’d help out at the shop.”

Hermione blushed.  “I thought you might want to since I’m going, but clearly I was mistaken.”  She sounded as though she were stung, but did not want to let Ron know.  She failed, at least to Ginny’s ears.  Ron seemed to have missed it.  He gestured at her with his hamburger.

“Look, I’m not saying that that isn’t a draw.  I do like you, Hermione.  And I’m very glad that we’re,” Ron’s ears went red.  “But I am _not_ going to suffer through another year of school.”

Hermione bit her lip, and turned to Harry.  “What about you?  I suppose you’re the same, aren’t you.  Well shot of it?”

Harry took another bite of his hamburger, chewed, swallowed, and then said, “I am continuing my education, Hermione.  I’m just focusing a bit.  I mean…It’s hard to get motivated for it, isn’t it?  I can understand that you want to go back.  But I think that I’ve given my time to the school, and I’m ready to move on.  Do something new.”

He was not looking at Ginny.  His green eyes were focused on Hermione’s brown ones.

Hermione nodded slowly.

“How come you aren’t annoyed at him?” demanded Ron, “Is it because he killed Voldemort?  I bet it is.  That’s unfair treatment, that is.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m not dating her,” grinned Harry, “although that is also unfair treatment, I suppose.”  It was only then that he looked at Ginny.  “Will you be ok with it?”  His eyebrows were knit together in worry.

“I’ve had to deal with you being far away already.  At least this time I’ll be able to write to you.  Maybe you can pop up for Qudditch and Hogsmeade?” She was trying very hard to keep the disappointed edge out of her voice.

“Absolutely,” smiled Harry, his relief evident.

She should have anticipated it, really.  Harry wasn’t Harry if he was doing what was expected of him.  He had to exceed expectations (she groaned internally at the standardized testing vocabulary) when it came to certain things—like fighting the dark arts. 

But she hadn’t.  She had let herself think—naively, stupidly?—that they would have one last year together at Hogwarts, one last, _normal_ year before they had to face the real world together. 

For a moment, she felt bad at having had the expectations—those treacherous hopes that she had seen so often dashed—at all.  She also knew that if she continued to think this way, she would probably end up sullen and silent for the rest of the day, so she took herself firmly in hand and dragged herself out of the darker corners of her subconscious, determined not to let herself slip out of the lightness she had felt since she had come home from Hogwarts.

Kreacher appeared, offering each of them another burger—something only Ron accepted—and Ginny wondered if she could ever get used to this version of the house.

It was clean and bright, and, especially once Harry had convinced Kreacher to take down the dead Elf heads (“Would Regulus have really wanted them there?  He was so good to House Elves, and it seems almost…disrespectful to have them there like that…”), really quite charming.  The old curtains had been replaced, the furniture had been reupholstered, Moody’s spell guarding the door had been undone, and the painting of Walburga Black only started screaming if you opened the front door too much or slammed it too loudly.

She actually, and she would never have imagined thinking this, enjoyed spending time here.  Playing chess with Ron in the library, gossiping with Hermione over tea in the kitchen, snuggling with Harry in the bedroom that had once belonged to Sirius…

She liked this bedroom tremendously. 

The bed was spacious and comfortable.  She wondered if that was why Sirius had chosen it because it was definitely broad enough for two people to lie in it.  Harry (as far as she was aware) had kept Sirius’ decorations in place, although she had made him cover up the bikini-clad women with a picture of herself in a similar state of undress, and charmed so that only he could see her.  She was sure that the photographic version of herself would prove more tantalizing than those boring muggle photos.

The sole frustration was, unsurprisingly, Ron.

It was true, Ron spent a very large amount of time with his arm thrown over Hermione’s shoulder.  She saw them escape to one room or another for a snog many times over the course of the summer, and sometimes she wondered if they weren’t sleeping in the same bed.  (She knew from Hermione that they weren’t shagging—not yet.  She had made Hermione to swear never to give her more details.)

But it seemed that the moment she and Harry were really getting into things, Ron would appear.  When she removed Harry’s shirt, Ron was coming up the stairs; when Harry’s hand slipped under her bra, Ron was calling asking if they felt like going for a walk; and the one time Harry managed to get the bra off, Ron had barged in, gaped, and turned around, leaving a broken mood in his wake.

“He’s my best mate,” sighed Harry as he handed her back her bra (lacy blue, with white flowers on it.  She was quite proud of it), “but I am going to throttle him.”

“I’m already planning,” growled Ginny as she slipped the bra in place and hooked it back together, then reaching for her shirt.  Harry looked at her chest forlornly as she pulled the Gryffindor t-shirt over her head. 

She almost smirked, but she was too angry for it.  It wasn’t until that very moment that she realized how long it had been since she had shagged someone and the realization was not particularly welcome.  On the contrary, it made her want to pull Harry back down to the bed and have her way with him as she had so often imagined throughout the past few years.

“And you _know_ he’s going to tell mum,” she added, “And however much she likes you, you can be damned sure that she won’t want us doing what we are doing right now.”

Harry groaned.  He had clearly not thought of that.  “She’s going to be ridiculous, isn’t she?”

“You should have seen her with Bill and Fleur.  She could barely tolerate them sleeping together when they were engaged.  Sometimes,” she glanced in the mirror and straightened her skirt and hair, “I wonder if Tonks and Lupin got married just to get her off their backs.  Molly Weasley loathes fornication.”

“Your word, or hers?” asked Harry.

“Hers.  Definitely hers.  I happen to be quite the fan of fornication, myself.”  She had meant it playfully, suggestively even, but Harry froze. 

 _Shit_.

Then, he said very slowly, trying, and failing, to sound casual, “So, you and Dean…”

She took a deep breath, wondering what was best to tell him.  She decided on the truth.  “Michael.”

Harry’s eyebrows shot up.  “You would have been fourteen!” he blurted out.

She nodded. 

“Ah.”

They were quiet for a moment.  Ginny wanted to say so much—how none of that mattered really, how Michael had been bloody awful at it, and how she had hardly been able to shag Dean without thinking of Harry.  How she had spent half her bloody relationship with him pining for Harry even though she had convinced herself that he would never want her. 

But she thought that none of that would help at the moment.  Instead, she settled on, “Are you all right?”  She sounded far more vulnerable than she had intended.

“Yeah, I just need to…get my head around it, you know?”

Suddenly, he blushed a very bright red.

“What is it?” she asked.

He shrugged, trying to look nonchalant.  “I just…haven’t, you know?”  She wanted to hug him when his face went even redder.  Honestly, his coloring would have put Ron to shame.

“I know,” she murmured, and sat down on the bed next to him and took his hand.  “I mean…I’m your first real girlfriend.  Cho certainly doesn’t count.”  Harry nodded.  “It’s all right, you know.  I’m not going to be scoring you, or anything.  I promise.  Don’t think about it.” 

She wondered for a moment if she wasn’t making an assumption of how quickly he might want to (non-metaphorically) leap into bed with her.  Of course, he had just stripped her naked from the waist up, but that might just be as far as he wanted to go at the moment.  She watched his face carefully.

“Well, now I’m going to think about it,” he muttered, and she laughed lightly.

“It’ll be fine.  Of course, we have to get there first.”  She looked significantly at the door that Ron had burst through minutes before, and it was Harry’s turn to laugh.

“Oy, you lot decent yet?” shouted Ron.

“Yes, Ronnie, we are,” hollered Ginny.

And just like that, everything was different.

Whenever she and Harry snogged, he seemed nervous, as though wondering if this would be the time when Ron would not conveniently interrupt them and Ginny would (she couldn’t think of a non-crude way to say it) fuck him senseless.  He shouldn’t have worried though—after the shirtless-braless incident, Ron was ever-present, and Ginny began to wonder if she wouldn’t have to marry Harry to fuck him senseless.

It was clear that Ron had at the very least suggested to mum that she and Harry were up to something.  When she was home for dinner, Mrs. Weasley would go out of her way to mention the horrible things that sex can do to a relationship if it happens too soon (as if Ginny were not already familiar with this line of thought).  All of these occasions were uncomfortable, but never more so than when Fleur was at the table. 

“I do not agree with this,” stated the Frenchwoman matter-of-factly.  Ginny noticed her father, Bill, Percy, and George all take very large sips from their firewhisky.  Ginny—not yet seventeen—had no such luxury.

“Oh?” there was fire in Mrs. Weasley’s voice.

“Absolutely.  If you are going to be married to someone, and you are only going to be sleeping with one person for the rest of your life, you should know that you enjoy it.”

At which point Bill finished his drink and went for a refill.

“Yes, but then it is possible you are with many more people than your husband or wife.  And that might be something that they are uncomfortable with.”

It was Percy’s turn to drink, and Ginny couldn’t help but be curious about the cause of his unease.  Then she decided she really, _really_ didn’t want to know.  Molly, luckily for her sons, was determinedly focused on Fleur.

“Well, you will undoubtedly have learned something at that point.  And then you can have more fun in the teaching.”  She daintily took a sip of her water. 

Bill downed his second glass and watched to see if he would need more.

By the time the conversation ended, Molly Weasley looked as if she would breathe fire and only Fleur seemed to be unaffected by the conversation.  About twenty minutes in, George had the decency to slip Ginny a glass under the table, and Bill was so drunk that he could barely stand up straight.  Even Mr. Weasley was very red in the face.  The next morning, Percy and George slept later than Ginny had ever seen them before (they had to stay the night, since Mrs. Weasley wouldn’t let them drunkenly apparate home.  Drunken splinching was not a pleasant experience).

That evening, when she dined at Number 12, Ron asked her what had happened at dinner at the Burrow.

“George was very tight-lipped about it.  I haven’t seen him come in that late most of the summer.”

“It’s your fault,” growled Ginny.

“Yeah?  What did I do?”

“Someone must have mentioned something to mum to make her go on the warpath about sex again.  And then Fleur took her on.”

“Dear god.”

“I wonder who would have done such a thing.  It was most inconsiderate of them.  Especially if they plan on, you know, having sex ever with their girlfriend.”  She had glared at Ron so fiercely that he had leaned back in his chair. 

He had finished dinner quite quickly after that, and gone upstairs to do something vague, leaving Harry, Hermione, and Ginny alone in the kitchen.

“You do realize that’s an empty threat, right?” said Hermione after a moment.

“Which one?” asked Ginny.

“The one about how he should watch himself if he wants to have sex with me.”

“Yeah,” sighed Ginny, “I’d never stoop to his level of idiocy.”

“Just making sure.  Because, if I were to want to…”

“You’d probably end any attempt I made before I even got started.  I’m well aware,” sighed Ginny, “Doesn’t stop him from being a giant tit, does it?”

Harry snorted.  Hermione and Ginny looked at him.  “Sorry.  Funny image.”

“I’ll concede it,” grinned Ginny.  She glanced at her watch.  “Shit, I’ve got to get back.  Mum made me promise to help her clean out some of Charlie’s old things.  Wonder what on earth could have prompted it.”

Harry made a face.

“I know.  I’ll be busy all day tomorrow, probably, too.  He,” she looked at the kitchen door, “is very lucky he’s my brother.  Or else I would probably have murdered him by now.”

It seemed that Molly Weasley could never be deterred.  She had tasks for Ginny every day—cleaning the attic, weeding the garden, checking in on George—that almost always took up most of the day so that, if she was lucky, she’d be able to pop over to Number 12 for dinner.  But she didn’t even have enough time for a half-snuggle, much less a snog, much less a shag. 

Even on her birthday, a remarkably uneventful occasion given that she was turning seventeen, she barely had the opportunity to say more than five words when alone with Harry.

When she had been allowed her first (legal) glass of firewhiskey, Percy had been hovering over her shoulder.  When she had been helping set the table for dinner, George had been there, telling her about a product he was thinking of developing.  When she had been unwrapping her presents, and all she could think of was how she would like to be unwrapping Harry (she was drunk, it didn’t have to make sense), her entire damned family was sitting around her, keeping her from looking suggestively at Harry.

She was furious about it.

One evening, after she collapsed on her bed thoroughly exhausted from cleaning (you’d be surprised how many odds and ends Charlie had stashed away in his room), Mrs. Weasley knocked on her door.

“A letter to you, from Hermione.”

Ginny read it swiftly.

_Gin,_

_Mum’s having a tea party for me and my friends to celebrate an early birthday thing before heading back to school.  Will you come?  She’s only invited the girls I went to school with when I was ten and I don’t know what I will do with myself.  Meet me at Number 12 around ten and we’ll head over together?_

_Hermione_

Mrs. Weasley seemed quite pleased with the plan, probably because it would keep Ginny away from Harry for the umpteenth day running.

Ginny was furious.  She only had three days before leaving for Hogwarts again.  And as much as she loved Hermione, she couldn’t think that this was a suitable substitute for what she would rather be doing.

When she arrived in Number 12’s kitchen fireplace, Harry was sitting by himself, reading _The Daily Prophet_ and drinking a cup of tea.

Looking at him, she had a sudden vision of coming home from a long night at work (at some bland, unspecified job) and finding him sitting there, waiting for her.  There was a time when she would have wondered if she deserved that.  That time was already fading into memory.

“Hello,” he smiled at her.

“Hello,” she went over to give him a quick kiss, “Is Hermione here?”

“You just missed her.  She and Ron went to a thing at her parents’ house.  Should be there most of the day.

Ginny nodded slowly.

“That’s funny,” she murmured, sitting down next to him and kissing his neck.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.  She asked me to go with her.” She kissed his neck again, in that spot that almost always made his eyes roll into the back of his head.  “That’s how I was able to get out of the Burrow today.” She nipped at it.  She could feel him trembling beneath her lips.  “Or else you know mum would have thought of something for me to do.”

Harry pulled away from her and arched an eyebrow.  “I wonder why she would have done that.  It seems a little bit flaky of Hermione to do something like that.”

“Did you put her up to this?”  She arched an eyebrow in return.

“I might have suggested that if she and Ron were going to be away, the house would be awfully lonely, and that I didn’t know what I would do with myself.”

Ginny leaned in and kissed him on the lips this time.  It was a long kiss—longer than she had intended—and she felt his hands come up to her neck to cradle her face.

“Well, I can think of some things to keep you occupied, if you’re worried about boredom,” she murmured into his lips when she finally broke the kiss enough to speak.

“Well, Ginny, you’re going to have to tell me about this.  Might I suggest we go elsewhere, so Kreacher can clean the kitchen?  I know he’ll be wanting to do that, but he’s too polite to say so.”

And before Ginny could believe what was happening, she and Harry were upstairs in the bright bedroom that was covered in Gryffindor colors. 

The minute they closed the door, Ginny kicked off her sandals and Harry’s lips were on hers and his hands were in her hair.  He was walking forward, walking her backwards.  A moment later her knees hit the bed and she tumbled onto it, pulling him down with her.

She could feel him pressing down on her—feel everything from the scar on his chest from where the locket Horcrux had attached itself to his skin, to his slightly hardened nipples, to his much harder cock. 

He was kissing her neck, and slowly, moving his way across her collarbone to the other side.  She hoped, for half a moment, that he would be gentle—she always got hickies on her neck and she was pretty damn sure that—oh!  That was…oh!  (Served her right for trying to be practical while doing this.)

Harry was slowly unbuttoning her oxford shirt and she wished desperately that she had thought to wear a better bra.  It was plain white cotton today—not half as interesting as the last time Harry had seen her in one. 

He kept kissing and unbuttoning down her stomach and a moment later, he had slid off her, off the bed, and he was pulling her trousers off as well.

She looked at him.  He had stopped, kneeling between her spread legs, staring at her. 

She felt remarkably exposed like that, even though she was not (yet) completely naked.  Perhaps it was the angle he was looking at, or perhaps it was the pause that made her breathlessness so audible, but for a brief moment, the reality of the situation pulled into her mind.  Her stomach tightened, though whether from arousal and anticipation or anxiety, she was not sure.

She saw a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, a flicker of nervousness.  It spurred her into action.

She slid off the bed after him and straddled his knees.  She pressed her lips to his very, very gently, then paused, looking into his eyes.  Without breaking eye contact, she pulled his t-shirt over his head, knocking his glasses slightly out of place, and kissed him again, feeling the warmth of his bare skin under her hands, against her chest.  There was nothing quite like it in the world—that feeling of skin on skin.  And the fact of _Harry_ made her nearly giddy.

Harry made a strangled noise and grabbed her underneath the elbows, pulling both of them to their feet.  And then she was pulling at his pajama bottoms and they were pooling around his ankles and he was completely naked in front of her.  She only had a brief moment to appreciate that he was not wearing anything under his pajamas when he slipped a hand into her knickers and pulled them down to join the last vestiges of his clothing on the floor, while she reached around to her back and unhooked her bra, letting it too fall away.

He was breathing heavily, staring at her, taking in everything from the shade of her nipples to the tuft of red hair growing between her legs.

He was as thin as he ever had been, his muscles still hidden just below the surface of his skin.  There was a smattering of dark hair on his chest, and a trail that lead down to the thicker, coarser hair that at the base of his cock, which stood at attention. She was pleased to see that it was bigger than Michael’s.  Not quite as large as Dean’s but in truth, Dean’s had hurt some times, if she hadn’t been quite ready for it.  Harry’s looked a proper size.  (She could not truly believe she was comparing, especially when she had promised herself that she wouldn’t.)

Her eyes flicked up to his face, and waited a moment for his bright green eyes to pull themselves away from her breasts. 

“That’s about as far as I’d planned…” admitted Harry, his grin lopsided and sheepish.

She extracted her feet from her fallen knickers and stepped towards him.  She took his hand and pulled him towards her once again, kissing him very gently. 

She could feel his heart beating against the skin of her chest, his ragged breaths on her face, his hands trembling against her hips.  She dipped her tongue into his mouth and steered him towards the bed.

This time, it was Harry who tumbled backwards onto the mattress, pulling Ginny down on top of him.

She crouched on her hands and knees above him, kissing him, enjoying the feeling of her nipples brushing lightly against his chest.  Then, she took a deep breath and reached down beneath her, taking him firmly in her hand.

He groaned, and his eyelids fluttered as she began to stroke him.  After a moment, he released one hand from the bedspread he had been clutching and ran it along her cleft, gently massaging her in a way that set her stomach to dancing.  He did not really know what he was doing, of that she was absolutely certain.  But he was trying, and it made her heart sing.  She raised herself slightly away from his hand, pausing in her stroking.  His eyes opened and locked onto hers. 

She shivered at the anticipation in those emerald eyes, at his fingers toying with her cleft, his lips rising to her left breast…

When he pulled away, she raised an eyebrow inquisitively, and he nodded.  She placed him at her opening and pressed him inside her, as deeply as he could go.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he exhaled, “Ginny.”

It had been a long time since she had had someone inside her, she was aware of it.  It didn’t hurt, but she felt her muscles stretching to accommodate him, and it was delightful.

Slowly, very slowly, she began to rock her hips back and forth.  And slowly, very slowly, he did as well.  Then, quite suddenly, he sat up underneath her, and pulled her mouth to his, one hand on the back of her neck, the other toying with a nipple, as she rose and fell on top of him.

She did not know how long he lasted.  She was too lost in the feeling of it, the sound of him moaning her name, the taste of his skin against her lips.  The increasing speed, the increasing need, the increasing ecstasy.  And suddenly, he had pulled out of her, and she felt a warm and familiar stickiness on her stomach.  She heard his ragged breath, felt the tattoo of his heart at her breast.

When his breath had steadied, he slowly pulled away from her, looking down.  He pulled himself out from underneath her, reached for his wand on the bedside table, waved it, and his semen disappeared from their skin.

She stretched out on the bed, smiling at him.  He leaned over and kissed her, as deeply and slowly as she could imagine.

“You didn’t have to pull out,” she said gently.

“I didn’t want to…but I thought…you know…”

She laughed again, and kissed him.  “You weren’t going to get me pregnant.  I’ve been taking a potion for years now.  It seems I carry my stress in my uterine lining, and unless I induce a period, it won’t detach—which can be dangerous.”

“Ah.”  Harry looked sheepish again.

“Something for later.”  His expression changed in a flash.

He was kissing her again, his lips moving from hers to her neck to her collar bone, back to her lips, to one breast, then another, to her stomach, and then his hands were pulling her hips so that they were lying flat on the bed, and his mouth was between her legs, licking at the soft, moist flesh he had until moments before been pressed into.

She couldn’t restrain a moan. 

That was new.  She had never moaned during sex.  Indeed, Michael had complained that she didn’t seem to enjoy herself enough because she was so quiet when he fucked her.  It had just never come naturally to her.  But Harry’s tongue…

“A little up, darling.  There, that’s it.  No, a little more to the—yesss.”

His tongue was swirling around her clit one moment, then running up and down, then back to swirling.  Once he was sure that her hips weren’t moving anywhere drastic, his hands slipped down to the soft skin of her upper thighs, tracing similar patterns to the ones his tongue was making. 

She felt as though her skin were on fire. 

“Oh…”

His right hand slipped further up her leg until it was back at her cleft.  Then, slowly, he slipped a finger inside of her.  She moaned again.  This time, she reveled in the noise.  As a response, he slipped another in.

“One more…”

And a third.  He gently rocked them inside her, stroking her inner walls, all while his tongue twirled away on her clitoris.

She felt the familiar sensation of building in her lower stomach, and took a deep breath, trying to preserve the pleasure, trying to keep the orgasm at bay as long as she could.  She knew it wouldn’t be long.  The fire had turned a hot blue somewhere in between the second and third finger.  Her shuddering breaths were not cooling it.

She opened her eyes.

Without even having been aware of it, her head had fallen slightly to the right, and her eyes fell on a mirror.

The sight of Harry between her legs, the flush creeping up between her breasts, the hickies at her neck…

When the tremors had stopped, when she had stopped calling out incoherently, when her breathing had regulated, when her clit was too sensitive to let him keep touching it, when her cunt had stopped clutching at his fingers, she slowly pulled away from him.  She could barely move, barely think.  She was aware of him slipping up next to her and pulling her into his arms, kissing her neck so gently.

They lay like that for a while.  She did not know how long.  She wasn’t sure that she cared. 

The rest of the day was a blur.  She and Harry spent it in bed, teaching one another their bodies. 

Harry, she learned, loved being kissed in the crook of his elbows, on the palm of his hands.  He liked it when she clung to his ass, when she massaged the spot just behind his testicles, when she ran her hands over his thighs. 

Harry learned that she did not like to be kissed gently, that light nips to her nipples elicited a strong response, that speed and pressure on her clitoris were welcome, and that being kissed along her spine made her tremble. 

She had Harry in ways she had never tried with Dean or Michael—largely because they had never had as spacious a bed as the one that Sirius had once occupied—and she felt thoroughly well used by the time the sun was setting.

Sometime that evening (she wasn’t sure what time it was), she began extracting herself from him.  He was half asleep and he groaned when she moved. 

“Why?” he mumbled.

“I should get home.  Mum will be suspicious.”

“How about you just stay here until you leave for Hogwarts?”

She smiled.  “As tempting as that is, I think that Mum might breathe fire…Not to mention dear Ronnie.”

“I’ll sic Kreacher on him.  He won’t even know you’re here.”

Ginny snorted.

“Yeah…” conceded Harry, “It was worth a shot, wasn’t it?”  He sat up and stretched.  His eyes did not leave her as she moved around the room, dressing.  “You’re going to have trouble no matter what,” he sighed.

She looked at herself in the mirror, running her hands through her hair to try and make it look a little less sex-tousled.  At last, her eyes settled on her neck, which was more bruised than it had ever been before in her life.

She smiled, and locked eyes with his reflection.  “Incorrigible.”  He grinned at her.  “I don’t suppose you have make-up here?  Or know a good bruise-reduction charm?”

“Charm—I’m afraid not.  Make-up, maybe in Hermione’s room?” 

“It might be a good idea for us to learn one.”  She raised an eyebrow at his reflection.

His eyes were pure evil.

She slipped into her sandals, and went into Hermione’s room.

It was impeccably clean, and she found a pouch with basic necessities sitting on top of the dresser.  Unfortunately, Hermione’s skin was darker than hers, and it did not completely cover up the discoloration.

“Maybe you can say you walked into a door?” came Hermione’s voice.  Ginny jumped.  Hermione smiled at her.  Then, in answer to Ginny’s panicked look said, “Ron’s downstairs digesting.  I think we may have finally filled him up.  He’s probably already asleep.  Here.”  She crossed the room and pointed her wand at Ginny’s neck.  She could feel the bruises reducing.

“Thanks Hermione,” sighed Ginny.

“Anytime.  You two had fun?”  Hermione’s eyes were positively twinkling.  Ginny nodded happily.  “Harry’s asleep.  I probably shouldn’t have, but I poked my head in.”

Ginny’s grin felt wicked.  “I wore him out.”  She winked.

Hermione rolled her eyes.  “That was _always_ going to happen.”

Home was strangely quiet when she flooed back.  Her parents were in the kitchen eating sandwiches. 

“You look knackered,” smiled her father, “the muggles wear you out?”

“Yes,” said Ginny, sitting down with them and reaching for a sandwich.  Only in taking a bite did she realize she had not eaten anything (except Harry—she blushed, hoping her parents wouldn’t notice) since breakfast.

“Hermione’s party was nice?” asked her mum.

Ginny nodded.

Mrs. Weasley’s eyes narrowed.  “You’re tight-lipped.”

“No, just tired.  It was nice.  I had a lovely time.  But it’s exhausting not being a witch for a day.”  She made a brave attempt at smiling.

Before long, she had slipped upstairs to bed, and to sleep.

It was, she realized as she began dozing, rather like losing her virginity again.  But better this time.  Much much better.

Her dreams were full of Harry, the look on his face when he came, his eyes full of wonder the first time she had put her lips on his cock, the playful noises he made when she would roll him over so that she was on top again.  She liked that very much.

She slept very late that day, and it was just after noon before she traipsed downstairs, freshly showered to help her mum cook.

“You really shouldn’t be cooking, Ginny dear,” said Mrs. Weasley when Ginny flourished her wand and began helping her with a strange dessert confection.  “It is your going away party.  You should go and relax.  You have been very busy the last few days.”

“I don’t mind helping,” she smiled.  It kept her mind off of naked Harry.  She did not want to be left alone with those thoughts until she was sure she couldn’t be interrupted.

It was remarkably soothing, cooking.  Chopping onions, mixing batters, peeling potatoes.  So methodical, so rhythmic.

And her mind turned almost instantly to the rhythm of Harry’s hips pressing into hers as he fucked her.

No.  Maybe cooking wouldn’t keep her mind off naked Harry.

Before she was even aware of it, all her brothers were there, and Hermione, and Harry, and they were all sitting outside around the table.  She was between Hermione and George, laughing about the concept of Draco Malfoy working in the Ministry of Magic, wondering how on earth he had managed it.

“Maybe he said he was really, really sorry?” asked Ginny.

“Or if he gave all the Malfoy gold to the Muggle-born recovery fund?” suggested Hermione.

“I bet Kingsley just felt bad for the wanker,” said George.

Mrs. Weasley glared at him, but said nothing.  No one had the heart to harass George, not since Fred.

“Who knows.  The ministry isn’t pressing charges on him.  I think they figure that chucking his dad in prison again is enough,” said Harry from across the table.

“Oi, it’s a celebratory night.  Can we not talk about Malfoy?” demanded Ron.

“I suppose we could try,” said Bill, “It might not be as fun though.”

“What do you plan to do with the Quidditch Team this year, Ginny, since everyone’s graduated?” asked Harry.

“Oh, not Quidditch!” moaned Hermione.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded pretty much everyone at the table.

Hermione flushed.

“Only…only that…I…”

“That’s right, you back down,” grinned Charlie. 

“I suggest we never mention this moment again, Hermione,” said Harry, reaching for the bottle of wine that sat on the table between him and Ginny.

As his hands grasped its neck, he locked eyes with her, and her heart stopped.

His smile was mischievous, as if knowing exactly what had happened, and she kicked him under the table, glaring.

He shifted his weight slightly, so that his leg ran up against her.  She withheld a squeak.

 _Not here_.   She thought desperately.  _Mum can’t know!_

But his wicked grin did not subside as he poured himself another glass of wine and slowly took a sip.

Oh she would throttle him.  And then probably jump his bones.

God, she never wanted to leave him. 

She wanted to stay forever, laughing and loving and fucking until she could forget everything else in the world.

But there was no stopping it in the end and the next day dawned clear and bright.

“I’ll see you soon.  Honestly, I’ll be around.  I promised McGonagall I’d help with the repairs of the castle.  You probably won’t even notice that I’m gone,” Harry murmured into her neck the next day.  She imagined they made a very touching sight—the couple saying goodbye on a railway platform, wrapped around one another.

“I’ll notice,” she murmured back.  His arms tightened around her. 

She heard the whistle.  She did not move. 

It blew again.  Harry lifted his head from where it had been resting on her shoulder.  He gently kissed her forehead, then took a step back. 

Very slowly, she got on the train.  She stood by the window as it began to pull away, watching as Harry walked down the platform alongside her until the Hogwarts Express was moving too quickly for him to keep up, and she lost sight of him.

She took a deep breath and moved towards the compartment where Luna and Hermione were sitting.  They were smiling and hypothesizing about how the castle would be different this year, wondering how much Voldemort’s attack would disrupt the normalcy of Hogwarts.

Ginny sat quietly by the window, watching as London pulled away. 

A grey owl was fluttering by the window, looking determinedly at her, a letter clutched in its beak.

She opened the window, and it landed on the luggage rack, extending its neck towards her.  She took the proffered letter, and opened it.

There was a photograph from her fifth year inside it, one of her and Harry lying in the sunshine by the lake.  On the back of the photo, there was a note.

_Dennis Creevey developed some of Colin’s old film.  He sent this to me yesterday._

_I love you, and will see you very soon._

Ginny smiled.  Aware of how sappy it was and not caring, tucked the photograph into the pocket of her coat, right over her heart.


End file.
